Novel approach and insights into muscle stem cell transplantation

The successful application of stem cell therapy to muscle disease requires both improved engraftment strategies and a better understanding of muscle stem cell recruitment mechanisms. This project aims to address both issues. The first aim is to develop a drug-based selection strategy to enhance the re-population of diseased muscle beds with transplanted healthy stem cells. This strategy will both improve donor cell uptake into the host’s muscle stem cell niche and provide a competitive advantage to the healthy donor cells. We have recently shown that this strategy can be successfully implemented in mouse muscle stem cell transplantation. The second aim investigates a novel finding of ours discovered during the development of the drug-based selection strategy – the potential systemic mobilization and/or recruitment of stem cells from remote locations in response to regenerative signals.